Origin of the Dial Explained

When making an Indiana Jones movie, there’s a certain checklist you need to complete. Get back Harrison Ford. John Williams does the music. And, of course, make sure the character has a really cool relic to go after.

In Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, that relic is called the Antikythera, a real-life device discovered in 1901 but believed to be created around 100 BC. It was incredibly advanced for its time and is now considered one of the oldest examples of what a computer would eventually be. No one knows for sure who created it, but some believe it was famous ancient mathematician Archimedes, and that’s what the film goes with. Speaking with io9, the film’s co-writer and director James Mangold told us how that specific device was chosen for the film.

“It was one of the first things I came up with,” Mangold told io9. “I even think I presented it to Harrison [Ford] and Steven [Spielberg] and Kathy [Kennedy] before we had even cemented we were going to make the movie together.” Mangold believed that this choice, what object Indy would go after, would ultimately drive not just the plot, but the theme of the movie.

“There’s always been a unique way that the MacGuffin, or ‘relic’ in the context of an Indiana Jones movie, represents the theme that the movie’s about,” he said. “So in Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s not just the Ark of the Covenant, but it’s also the idea Indy’s a scientist and he doesn’t believe in that kind of stuff. He doesn’t believe in that kind of magic. It’s hokum to him. But, in the end of the movie, he’s confronted by the magisterial power of God itself. So that is a character beat, not just a spectacle beat. And in this movie, I felt that Indy’s wrestling with time itself; therefore the relic, if it encapsulates the ability to undo time or escape time or its ravages or regrets, then that could be really rich territory for the film to explore.”

To say exactly what the film’s dial does with time is a bit too spoilery, but Mangold did discuss why he felt time was so important to making Dial of Destiny. “The movie had to be about something that made it relevant now and relevant to this character now,” Mangold said. “And of course, it had to be fun, had to be an adventure, had to have hijinks and comedy, but it had to be about something, as the other ones were. And what struck me is it had to be about time: my hero is old. There’s no denying it. And I didn’t want to make a movie in which an old guy is running around pretending he’s 40. I thought that would be sad. I don’t think it’s sad for an old guy to be contending with reality now and outdoing what we expect of him because he cares so much. So that’s what the story I wanted to make was.”

You can see that story next week when Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hits theaters. Here’s the video of Mangold discussing the Dial of Destiny.

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